Why we hate lusers

Right, bit of backstory here – we developed a whole website and database solution for this one big client of ours (name not revealed to protect the guilty). We are obligated to offer support for these guys, and I’m responsible for that (apart from the usual dev work that I do).

So, they decide to open a new branch – well, the guy who manages the new branch experiences an error on the website (error on our side, turns out that some of the code didn’t take new branches into account), so he calls me for help.

It turns out that this chap is not too bright…

Luser: “I’ve found an error on the website… (yadda yadda)”.
Me: “OK… can you know exactly what you did to cause the error?” [When fixing bugs, it helps if you can reproduce them, you see…]

Turns out, he doesn’t understand what I’m asking for, so I decide to take a simpler approach…

Me: “OK, this may help – next time you get the error, can you take a screenshot of your browser window showing the error, and mail it to me?”.
Luser: “What’s a screenshot?”
Me: *facepalm*

So, I search Google for a screenie-making tutorial, and mail him the first link that comes up, telling him that that’s how you take a screenshot, and that he should mail the screenshot to me when he’s taken it. The reply comes through two days later – the screenshot was of the guy’s Outlook window…

It took me several more days encountering similar stupidity to get the information I needed to find and fix the bug…